Friends

February072018

You probably didn’t even know your shoes needed sandals, did you? Well, that’s because you’re not as avant-garde as Sankuanz, a Chinese fashion label that knows just what you need to keep your brand new sneakers looking flawless for longer – sandals, of course.

Now, we’ve featured commercially-available sneaker protectors aimed at sneaker-heads before, but they looked more like artistically designed plastic bags, whereas Sankuanz just went with the “shoes for shoes” idea. They just came up with these bulky plastic and Velcro that can fit your already “sneakered” feet and protect them from, well, wear and tear, I guess, because I don’t see these sandals doing anything if it starts to rain. They made quite an impact at the recently-concluded Paris Fashion Week, but let’s just say the feedback wasn’t 100% positive. Either people are too conservative or they just don’t get the practicality of the idea.

How far would you go to achieve that extreme hourglass figure you’ve always dreamed of? How about wearing a tight corset around your waist for 23 hours a day?

When Navy veteran Diana Ringo, 39, of Chula Vista, California gave birth to her twins three years ago, she felt that the loss of her curves had masculinized her once feminine figure. Diet and exercise alone weren’t giving her the desired results, and so she turned to waist training. She now wears a tight corset 23 hours day, only removing it to shower or work out. The mother-of-three currently has an 18-inch waist to show for her efforts, down from her post-birth 27-inch waist.

Hardcore feminists searching for a vacationing spot where they don’t have to interact with men at all need look no further than SuperShe Island, a women-only island resort off the coast of Finland.

SuperShe Island is the brainchild of American entrepreneur Kristina Roth, who decided to invest in a women-only resort after realizing that being around men was distracting to other women. While vacationing at the Ashram in Calabasas, Calif., and the nearby Ranch Malibu, Roth noticed that women would focus more on the men than themselves, so she started contemplating the idea of a women-only resort where visitors could relax without any male distractions.

February062018

Ten years ago, Abby, a year-old black lab, was playing with her human family outside of their Apollo, Pennsylvania home, when something caught her attention and she just wandered off. Her owner,Debra Suierveld, spent weeks searching for the pup, but she eventually gave up, assuming the dog had been killed. Life went on for Debra and her family, but last week they got an unexpected blast from the past.

On January 30th, 2018, the Suiervelds received a phone call from Animal Protectors of Allegheny Valley who claimed to have their dog. Debra told them that they must have made a mistake, because of the family dogs were within view, but then they mentioned the name of the dog, ‘Abby’, to which the woman didn’t know what to answer.

Hermien, a plucky cow from Lettele, in the Dutch province of Overijssel, recently became a social media star and a symbol of freedom, after making a daring escape just as her owner was trying to load her on a truck bound for the slaughterhouse. Named after her owner Herman Jansen, the cow initially escaped with her sister, but sadly the latter was recaptured after being shot with a tranquilizer gun. Hermien, however, managed to hoof it to the nearby woods in northern Friesland where she has been living on her own for the last six weeks.

Much to the delight of her fans on Twitter and other social networks, Hermien has somehow managed to evade all attempts at recapture. A slew of hashtags like #JesuisHermien, #GoHermien, and #MeKoe have been trending on Dutch social media site in recent weeks. ‘Koe’ is the Dutch word for Cow, making the #MeKoe hashtag a play on the now famous #MeToo movement. The bold bovine has even won the hearts of Dutch royalty, with Pieter van Vollenhoven, the son-in-law of former Queen Beatrix, tweeting “we’ve got to save Hermien, let’s all buy her together and give her freedom”.

It was 1997 when Muhammad Iwan, 41, saw some children playing with a newborn estuarine crocodile that fisherman had recently caught at Pangandaran Beach, in West Java. He bought the reptile for just 25,000 Indonesian Rupiah ($1.8), named it Kojek, and welcomed it into his family home in Sempur Sub-District, West Java, as a pet.

Fast forward two decades, that tiny crocodile has grown into a massive 200kg gentle giant that Muhammad claims would never hurt him and his family. It’s this gentle side of Kojek that has made him a star in Indonesia, with people traveling to Sempur from all corners of the archipelago just to see him interact with his human family . His already immense fame has recently reached new heights, thanks to social media. Amazing photographs showing Muhammad bathing the large 2.7m (8ft, 8in) apex predator in his front yard just meters away from his small children aged 2 and 10, went viral last week, sparking all kinds of reactions.

February052018

In 1980, when Robert Shafran arrived for his first day of college at Sullivan County Community College in New York, he was confused and overwhelmed by people he had never met warmly greeting him with hugs and high-fives, and, strangest of all, calling him Eddy. The reason behind the odd reception emerged when he met his new roommate Michael Domitz.

It turned out that Michael’s roommate from the previous year was Eddy Galland, a young man who not only looked exactly like Robert, but walked, talked, and acted like him as well. The two men were exact copies of each other, so after Michael learned that Robert was born on the same day as his old roommate and that, like him, he was adopted, he decided the two of them had to meet.

“He had the same grin, the same hair, the same expressions — it was his double,” Domitz says in Tom Wardle’s new documentary “Three Identical Strangers”, which won a special jury award at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Describing an ice-cream as hot might seem strange, but when talking about the Respiro del Diavolo (Devil’s Breath), it’s actually an understatement. Made using an assortment of hot chillies, the bizarre treat scores over 1.5 million units on the Scoville scale of hotness, making it the world’s most dangerous ice-cream.

Respiro del Diavolo was brought to Glascow, Scotland, by Martin Bandoni, owner of the Aldwych Cafe and Ice Cream Parlour, but he claims the recipe has been a closely-guarded secret among Italian gelato makers for centuries. It has been used as a test of bravery at yearly gatherings among masters of the trade, but Bandoni thought it could become a commercial hit as well, so he put it on the menu of his ice-cream parlour in Glasgow. So far, the response has been ‘crazy’, with people from all over the UK stopping by to try the fiery treat.

Arina Aliyeva, one of the finalists of the 2018 Miss Virtual Kazakhstan beauty contest, recently shocked the nation after announcing that she was actually a 22-year-old man who had signed up for the national contest to prove an important point.

It all started with an argument Eli Diaghilev, a young Kazakh male model, had with his friends about female beauty. He argued that in the old days women valued qualities like individuality and charisma, while most young women nowadays just follow the most popular trends – be they in fashion, makeup or hairstyle – thinking it makes them beautiful. Eli added that thanks to all the available cosmetics, digital editing tools like Photoshop and the general falseness in the beauty industry, even a man could pass as a beautiful woman. Diaghilev’s friends apparently didn’t agree, so he decided to prove his point by signing up for the Miss Virtual Kazakhstan beauty contest.

February022018

If you’ve been looking for something to help you leave the house even less than you currently do, you’re probably going to love “Human Uber” a tech concept that allows people to be present anywhere using another person’s body.

Japanese researcher Jun Rekimoto presented his idea, called ChameleonMask, at MIT Tech Review’s EmTech in Singapore this week. Although he described it as “human uber,” his intriguing concept is more accurately described as mobile FaceTime, although even that is too much of a simplification considering that the technology aims to allow someone else to live your life for you.

Japan is known as the most polite nation on Earth, and that extreme politeness extends to all aspects of life, including bathroom etiquette. Many public toilets feature a wall-mounted device that, when pressed, creates a sound that masks that of urination. However, electronics company Roland has come up with an improved version that drowns out embarrassing bathroom noises completely.

Before the technology boom of the 1980s, toilet users would either flush the toilet or turn on a sink to mask the sounds they made when relieving themselves. However, as this was a needless waste of water, a more eco-friendly solution was sought, and thus the concept of the toilet sound generator was born. The most famous of the resulting devices, developed and manufactured by toilet brand Toto, is the Otohime (literal translation – “sound princess”). These devices resolved the water waste issue but only partially efficient in making people comfortable in the toilet, because the sound they generated didn’t do a perfect job of masking the embarassing noises. Luckily, a better solution is now available to them.

The Didu Cafe in Moscow, is one of the most interesting-looking cafes in the world. Its walls are covered with over 140,000 colorful plasticine figurines made by visitors over the years. It’s also home to the largest plasticine Mona Lisa on Earth.

The founder of Didu Cafe wanted to give patrons a chance to leave their mark on this place in a semi-permanent way, but also give them something to do while waiting for their food and drinks. Plasticine was the perfect solution. It’s easy to work with, colorful and ends up looking good, or at least funny, even in the hands of someone with no artistic talents. So he placed boxes of plasticine on all the tables and started inviting guests to create small artworks out of it and decorate the walls and ceiling of the cafe with them. Today, Didu is home to over 140,000 plasticine artworks, from abstract designs and childish figurines, to popular symbols and even profane messages.

February012018

Welcome to Monowi, Nebraska, population 1. According to 2010 U.S. Census data, Monowi is the only incorporated town in the country with only one resident.

As the only person living in Monowi, 84-year-old Elsie Eiler, is the town’s mayor, clerk, treasurer, librarian, bartender, among other functions. Every year she hangs a sign in the tavern advertising mayoral elections and then votes for herself. Federal law also requires her to produce a municipal road plan annually to secure state funding, and pay $500 in taxes to keep the water and electricity turned on. She also does the required paperwork to keep Monowi’s incorporated status and prevent it from becoming a ghost town.

When people ask Japanese artist Maruraba_2 (his Twitter handle) what drawing and design software he recommends, his answer is always ‘Excel’. Many take it as a joke, but only because they have no idea that his incredibly detailed anime art is created exclusively with the spreadsheet program.

To those of us who don’t work in accounting or simply hate crunching numbers, Microsoft Excel is extremely boring, but only because we haven’t discovered its true potential. To Twitter user @Maruraba_2, on the other hand, the spreadsheet software is an extremely valuable artistic tool that allows him to create amazing anime-inspired artworks. I have no idea how he does it, but all the digital drawings he posts on Twitter are done exclusively with Microsoft Excel.

Fashion modelling has always been an industry dominated by the young, with most models having to retire around the age of 30. One Russian modeling agency is going against the norm by working exclusively with models aged 45 and. The oldest model on their roster is 85.

Moscow-based modelling agency Oldushka was founded by former street photographer Igor Gavar last year. He used to document the street style of retirees on his blog, and the agency was just a natural evolution of his hobby. As the name implies, Oldushka is committed to finding work for older models and broadening their professional opportunities. 18 models are currently represented by the agency, ages 45 to 85, and based in cities across Russia. With the exception of Sergey, a 45-year-old model whom Gavar hired because he “looks older than he is”, the agency’s youngest model is 60.

January312018

N’na Fanta Camara, a healer from Guinea, in Western Africa, was recently arrested for conning over 700 women into thinking they were pregnant by giving them a strange cocktail of plants and medicines that left them bloated for long periods of time.

Women desperate to become pregnant would apparently seek Camara’s help and pay her considerable amounts of money for herbal concoctions that the so-called healer claimed would help them bear children. The con artist would make her clients drink plant mixtures that caused vomiting and diarrhea, but she reassured the women that this was all part of the process. She made it specifically clear that they were not to go to the hospital to treat their symptoms, but rather see Etienne Balamou, a laboratory technician running a clandestine clinic in Conakry, who police say was her accomplice. In time, the strange remedy made some of the women’s bellies become permanently bloated, making them think they were pregnant. Some reported looking pregnant for 12 to 16 months.

At first first sight, Alla Lebedeva farm doesn’t seem very different fro all the other in Prigorodny, a small village in western Siberia. But then you notice one of her fluffy Siberian cats, and then another, and another and you being to realize why this place is popularly known as Koshlandia, or ‘land of cats’.

59-year-old Alla and her husband Sergey got their first cat in 2003, a beautiful Siberian feline called Babushka. A year later, she gave birth to five kittens and before long cats pretty much took over the whole farm. When people ask how many cats live in Koshlandia, Alla simply says ‘a million, maybe more’. Some sleep in the henhouse, some in the shed, others are chilling on the fence around the farm or on the roof of the farmhouse. They’re pretty much everywhere, and that’s just how Alla and Sergey like it. In fact, they are so proud of their cat paradise that they always take photos of the cats and post them on social media.

January302018

If you ever find yourself having to convince someone that anything is possible, just tell them about a Pigcasso, a 450 pound (204 kg) pig who, after being rescued from a South African slaughterhouse at four weeks old, went on to become an acclaimed painter.

South African animal-rights activist Joanne Lefson adopted Pigcasso after rescuing her from a grim fate at the slaughterhouse, a couple of years ago. She took the animal back to her farm and offered her a variety of toys to keep her entertained. Among those toys were some paintbrushes, and the pig became so fascinated with them that she ignored all her other toys. Lefson decided to leave out some paint and canvas as well to see what the animal would do. Believe it or not, she started painting.

In 1980, when loggers for the Georgia Kraft Corp. cut a chestnut oak into logs they made a grim discovery. Lodged in a hollow stretch near the top of the tree was a mummified hunting dog. Rather than send the section of the tree on to the sawmill, the loggers donated it to Forest World, a tree museum in Waycross, Georgia. He has been a star attraction ever since.

The dog, named (slightly insensitively) “Stuckie” after a 2002 naming contest, had apparently been in the tree for approximately 20 years before the loggers discovered him. Experts believe that he had probably chased after some small game, wedging himself into the hollow tree and climbing a whopping 28 feet up before getting stuck.

Japan has long been known for both its strong traditions and being on the cutting edge of technology, and this new inn combining the classic Japanese surroundings with high-tech, self-driving slippers and furniture is a perfect reflection of this.

Nissan Motor Co. developed a system in which slippers park themselves at the entrance of the traditional inn, called ‘ProPilot Park Ryokan,’ waiting for guests to use them upon arrival. When guests have finished using them, the slippers will drive themselves back to their original position. Each slipper features two tiny wheels, a motor, and sensors to drive it across the lobby’s wooden floor using a simplified form of Nissan’s ProPilot Park technology.